" The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. "
— Harriet Beecher Stowe
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2.2 ; BURN.
THE LOUD TRILL OF Caroline's phone text alert rang on the plane. Reid, who was sitting directly in front of her with a chess match in between them, glanced up at her, startled by the noise. All the other profilers were too busy looking into other things to notice.
She grabbed her phone sitting in the chair beside her and checked her messages. Sure enough, she had a text from Rebecca. She bit her lip as she anxiously opened the message.
The text read: Cait is fine. Chris checked on her, she's just blowing off steam. Don't worry, focus on the case.
Caroline sucked in a shallow breath and mashed her teeth together even harder on her bottom lip. She was dangerously close to drawing blood, but she didn't care. Caitlin wasn't fine. She was angry and she was upset and Caroline was here, on a plane almost thirty-thousand feet in the air, instead of with her little sister.
Her fingers tapped across the letters on her phone, typing out the message before sending it.
She sent back: She's not just blowing off steam, she's pissed and she has every right to be. Make sure you, Chris or Aunt G stays with her tonight. She shouldn't be alone right now. Thanks, Bec.
With that, Caroline shut off her phone and shoved it in her black leather bag leaning against her chair, refusing to look at the phone for the rest of the plane ride. As much as she wanted to know what was going on, she did have a job to do, and she couldn't be distracted. She needed to compartmentalize.
"Everything alright?" Reid asked her, not glancing up from the chess board game as he shuffled a white knight piece across the board. "You look worried."
"I'm fine," she lied to him, giving him a convincing smile, "just family stuff, you know?"
"Care, you may be able to fool the rest of the team, but I know you better than that." He told her, his chocolate brown eyes meeting hers. They were warm and kind and earnest as they stared at her. "Now, what's wrong?"
She sighed. She couldn't resist those brown eyes. "It's my sister's sixteenth birthday in two days. I was supposed to say with my family these next couple of days to celebrate, but duty calls."
He frowned slightly as he thought. "Maybe we'll get back in time for her birthday."
"I highly doubt it. Besides, I don't think she'd want me there after this morning."
"And what happened?"
"We got into an argument."
"Over what?"
Caroline hesitated, trying to gauge what to say next.
Nobody knew her past except Hotch and Gideon, and that was only because they were on the case. If it was up to her, she wouldn't let anyone know what happened to her. She refused to tell anyone on the team what happened to her six years ago, even after Gideon suggested it would be a good step in her therapy. Therapy. She didn't need therapy. What she needed was the son of a bitch who ruined her life to rot in hell, but that was never going to happen, so she's stuck in limbo. She was here, but not completely.
To tell anyone on the team what happened to her, it would destroy everything she worked so hard for over the last year. People would see her differently, treat her weirdly and worst of all, think of her as weak. She may have been weak six years ago, but she sure as hell wasn't now. She refused to have that be taken away from her.
"She thinks I spend too much time at my job." Caroline lied smoothly. This time, if Reid noticed anything, he didn't say. "Which is true. I'm almost as much as a workaholic as Hotch is."
"You know, statistically, if you factor in sleeping and eating times, you're technically doing other things more often than working. 60% of your day is either eating, drinking, sleeping—"
She rolled her eyes, exasperated, puffing a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. "Thanks for the talk, Reid. Real helpful."
He opened his mouth partially to say something else, but before he could speak, Hotch spoke up from across the plane.
"Okay, guys, I want us to refresh on arsonists before we land. So what do we know?"
"There are two common stressors for serial arsonists." Reid stated, still looking at Caroline. He broke away his gaze to look over at Hotch.
"Loss of love and loss of job." Elle said while filing down her nails.
"When was the fire first set?" Derek asked everyone as he pulled up his computer. On the illuminated screen, he had created a chart of the days in the nine months when the fires had been set. Nine columns, one for each month, and seven rows, one for each day of the week.
"March. The next one was in May, and the third wasn't until September, then two weeks later there were three in one night." Hotch told him, reading off of the file in his hands.
Derek highlighted the dates in red as everyone continued to brainstorm.
"He's speeding up." Caroline noticed, looking at Derek's chart. The red was shortening in length of space. "The fires are closer together."
"Hey, Reid, you got any statistics on arsonists?" Derek Morgan called over his shoulder as he typed.
"82% are white males between 17 and 27." He stated as if he were reading it straight from a book. That was the perks of an eidetic memory. He knew everything. "Female arsonists are far less likely, their motive typically being revenge."
"Sounds like our boy's a student." Derek commented.
Gideon finally glanced up from reading a file in the corner of the jet. He squinted his eyes at him through his square-lens glasses. "Don't be so sure. You rely too much on precedent, you never allow for the unexpected."
Gideon looked over at Reid and Caroline. "If he's went from setting one fire to three in two weeks—"
"Rapid escalation." She told him. "He's gone from the power to damage a building to something more satisfying. The power over life and death."
"Exactly."
"Okay," Elle said, looking around the plane at everyone, "so who are we talking to first?"
Hotch held up the file and pointed to the picture of a pretty middle-aged black woman with short brown hair clipped to the file. "Dean of students, Ellen Turner."
Caroline rested back in her chair and she and Reid exchanged a quick look. She immediately recognized the urgency hidden in his eyes, a look she knew all too well. With the unsub's escalation, they had no idea when he would strike next, and that could make anyone a target.
There was going to be another fire, and the unsub's goal is to kill.
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Caroline slid on her sunglasses as the black SUVs pulled up in front of Bradshaw College's administration building. It was a bright 96 degrees outside and the sun was in full force. College kids bustled around them, oblivious to the black sedans parked in front of the entrance. It was better that way. She hoped they stayed oblivious, rather than panicked. It made everyone's job harder if people were panicking.
The moment the SUVs stopped, the BAU team piled out. Hotch, Elle and Derek in the first car and Gideon, Reid and Caroline in the second. Before she could step out of the van, Reid, who had been sitting in the front seat, extended her a hand. She gave him a sheepish smile as she took his hand and he helped her out of the van, her heels clicking as they stepped onto the sidewalk.
The moment she stepped outside, she looked around at the college campus. The administration building was in the center of the campus, the focal point. Reid had given her the rundown of Bradshaw College on the car ride. Established in the late 1800s, Bradshaw is known for its old-styled architecture. Buildings where equipped with large white columns and polished marble steps instead of stone or brick like most colleges. M.I.T was much larger and grander, but she noticed the college was still notable, ranking fairly high nationally. Normal kids go here trying to live normal lives.
If only a serial arsonist wasn't setting fires, then maybe these kids could.
"No badges." Gideon told the team as everyone else piled out the vans and started walking towards the front door. "I don't want to satisfy the unsub's need for attention by letting him know he got the FBI here. Try not to look official."
He glanced behind his shoulder at the team, all of whom were dressed professionally. Derek and Hotch were wearing freshly-pressed suits and Reid was in a checkered shirt with a dark red tie. Both Elle and Caroline were wearing a mute colored blazers with slacks, but Caroline was the only one who dared to wear heels on the job.
He sighed in resignation. "Try to look less official."
Reid scrunched his nose in confusion and glanced around him at everyone. Caroline met his gaze and shrugged, as Hotch straightened his tie and Derek and Elle just rolled their eyes.
The blonde girl slid her sunglasses further down her nose and peeked over the rims at the dark-skinned woman marching determinedly towards the group of FBI profilers. She recognized her from the photo shown on the plane—the dean of students, Ellen Turner. Although, walking off her left shoulder was someone she didn't recognize. He was a tall, skinny Asian man who looked beyond intimidated at the presence of the dean. But, in his defense, Caroline would've been intimidated too by the look of sheer determination on the dean's face.
"Hello, I'm Ellen Turner, dean of students here at Bradshaw College." The pretty African woman introduced herself, shaking everyone's hands curtly. "Obviously, I'd rather be meeting you under different circumstances" She looked over beside her at the Asian man. "This is Fire Inspector Zhang."
"This morning the Chemistry department reported several bottles of highly flammable chemicals missing." He reported to the FBI agents. Caroline pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, fully focused on the conversation.
It seems the unsub wasn't done quite yet.
"I'm prepared to evacuate this campus." Dean Turner said. "I cannot and will not have this threat hanging over this school."
"We understand that, ma'am, but that brings with it its own problems." Hotch explained to her. "You might evacuate the arsonist as well."
"Then the case goes unsolved; the campus is reopened, but the fires start up again." Caroline agreed, assuring the dean. "Keeping the school open right now is the best option."
"Wait, hold on," Derek interrupted abruptly. He looked over at the Fire Inspector. "You said the chemicals were missing today."
Inspector Zhang nodded while Derek continued. "One of the previous fires was set with diesel fuel that disappeared from the grounds keeping facility. How long after it disappeared was the fire set?"
Dean Turner and Inspector Zhang glanced each other before she replied.
"One day."
The FBI profilers all shared a concerned look, starting to think the same thing.
"If he's holding to a pattern. . ." Elle trailed off, biting her lip anxiously.
Caroline sighed and looked up at the looming building in front of her. She stared at it, as if she was waiting for something to happen.
"Who's to say the next fire won't be today?"
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Reid carefully lifted the yellow caution tape up as he ducked under it and entered the crime scene, trying to avoid stepping on the charred objects left in the burned room. He held the tape up as Caroline gracefully followed him and slipped under it. She straightened her back as she looked around Matthew Rowland's room.
There was an unmissable huge black scorch mark on the wooden floor where the victim had been burned alive. Around it, the fire had spread from a nearby rug onto the left wall, leaving pictures unrecognizable and anything else unsalvageable. Other than the parts of the room that had been reduced to black, charred nothingness, the room was relatively normal. Two unkempt beds, clothes lying everywhere, no organization system -- this was obvious the dorm of two college boys.
Caroline's mind started to work, trying to piece together the situation. Reid, who was silent as he walked around the room looking for evidence, watched as her clear blue eyes trained themselves on the edge of the door frame. She had particularly focused on the the lock.
"The door was locked." She stated, leaning over to examine the door frame. She took two fingers and carefully ran them along the edge. Besides getting gray ash and charcoal on her white gloves, she didn't feel any rough edges or abrasions. The unsub didn't apply much force to the door, it seemed virtually unharmed, minus the scorch marks.
"Matthew Rowland and his roommate watched as the doorknob turned against the lock." Reid said, watching her examine the doorframe.
"But the unsub couldn't get in."
"So he pours the accelerant into the room from the hallway."
Caroline frowned and placed her hands on her knees, pushing herself to stand up. "Which means he couldn't see the fire."
"But he could hear Matthew Rowland screaming." Reid countered.
She shook her head, still frowning. "Yeah, but not for long. He would have left quickly to avoid being spotted. It doesn't make sense."
Caroline walked over to Reid and stood beside him as she glanced around the room. She was vaguely aware she could smell the coffee from his breath and dull aroma of cologne coming off of him. She was close enough to him that, if she wanted to, she could reach out and touch his face towering above her. And she wanted to, but her hands stayed stiff at her sides.
"Pyromania as a mental disorder may just be a simple myth, but what we know from precedent that serial arsonists derive pleasure from pathological fire-setting." He explained to her.
"Sex and power." Caroline murmured to herself as she thought.
"But a serial arsonist wouldn't just set a fire and walk away."
"He needs to experience it."
Reid crossed his arms and glanced down at her, his brown eyes meeting her blue. She could see the gears in his mind working as he thought.
"So why would he set a fire he couldn't watch?"
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After checking out Matthew Rowland's room, Reid and Caroline headed to the make-shift command center the university provided for them. It was formally a computer lab, but now, it was their base of commands. It was equipped with over ten computers, all in working order, a white board, and two steel tables with chairs. It wasn't much, but it would do.
Caroline read through the case file quickly as she examined the devices on the table. Hotch told her and Reid to figure out the devices the unsub used to cause the first three fires, but so far, she wasn't seeing anything that caught her eyes. The design was basic, so basic a startling level engineer or science major could make, and there wasn't anything pointing towards a signature.
"So, the timer set the road flare, which then lights the chemical mixture inside the canister." She said to Reid, picking up the small, rectangular device in front of her. She turned it around in her hands, trying to find any distinctive markers. "Simple."
"Yet sophisticated in its simplicity." He told her, reaching for the device. "I mean, there's a meticulous construction to it."
Reid's hand brushed against hers as she handed him the device. It was just a linger, the brush of fingertips, but it was enough too cause her heart to race. She quickly tried to take her mind off of her pounding heart.
"Chemical accelerant could mean chemistry student." She suggested as she stood up with her coffee cup that Caitlin had gotten her for Christmas the year before. It was when she had went through her pottery phase, so she made it herself. It was one of her shorter-lasting hobbies, given her sister couldn't make anything to save her life. The coffee cup handle was lopsided and uneven and the front drooped down a little, like a little dent in a teapot. But she kept it anyway because, despite how hideous it looked, Caitlin gave it to her so it had all the value in the world.
"Could also mean chemistry professor." Reid added, tapping his fingers against the table as he examined the device.
Caroline clicked her tongue and shook her head, her blonde curls falling over her shoulder. "Mmm, I say student. You need self-confidence to lecture in front of a classroom of thirty college kids."
"Arsonists are socially incompetent." She continued as she filled up her coffee cup with a batch sitting near the windowsill. "This guy, he doesn't go on dates. He doesn't go to parties. He doesn't feel comfortable in front of groups."
She took a sip of her coffee and peeked up to see Reid staring at her with a mixed look of offended and confused on his face. That was around the time she realized that she just described Spencer in any social setting she'd ever seen him in and Caroline had to hold back a giggle. She swallowed her sip of coffee and coughed a couple of times, trying to play off her laugh.
"And, of course, he's a total psychopath." She assured him, trying to wipe the smile off her face.
He gave her an curt, awkward laugh and a quick twitch of a smile. She could tell he was uncomfortable. "Of course."
Suddenly, the sound of the fire alarm rang throughout the building, causing both Caroline and Reid to jump. The two didn't even have time speak before pandemonium insured. People inside and outside the command center started panicking, sprinting for the nearest exit. Screams erupted from the halls.
"What the hell is going on?" She yelled over the loud drill of the alarm, holding her hands over her ears, trying to block out the noise. She wasn't successful.
"I don't know!" Reid yelled back. She felt his hand brush against hers and then the cool grip of his long fingers wrapping around her wrist. He pulled her towards him, almost instinctively, and held her there in his arms, keeping her out of the way of the panicked employees. "Whatever is going on, we need to get out here. Now!"
Despite all the chaos and panic, she felt at peace. It was like the world tuned out around her. She couldn't hear the panicked screams and sound of feet sprinting down the halls. All she could focus on was Spencer Reid and the sound of his breathing against her ear.
"Caroline?" His voice pulled her back out of her daze. "Did you hear me? We have to go!"
She snapped out of it and immediately launched into that calm state she uses just for emergencies only.
"We need to find Gideon!" She told him, almost shouting in his ear. "I think he went to the west wing."
Reid nodded in agreement and the two FBI profilers pushed their way through the crowd to the closest exit, which was down the hall.
Her eyes were blinded by the bright sun the moment she stepped outside the door. She squinted and shielded her eyes. That's when she saw it.
Directly across from them, the west wing had billowing smoke coming out of the third story window.
Caroline took off towards the building, sprinting as fast without a second thought. She could hear Reid behind her, but he could never catch up with her, despite the fact she was in heels. She used to be in track and field in high school, even won titles for her long distance sprints. This was nothing.
"Move, move, out of the way!" She yelled at the crowd forming around the building. She could hear the sirens of the firetrucks and ambulances off in the distance but she didn't stop.
Please don't let someone be in there, she repeated to herself, almost like a prayer as she looked at the billowing smoke in the sky, Please don't let there be somebody in there.
When Caroline reached the building, she stopped dead in her tracks, with Reid panting behind her. A huge crowd had already formed around the building, everyone staring up at it with mixed looks of horror and fear. She was in the middle of the crowd and she looked up at the building, the fire racing out of the windows. It was so hot, she could feel the heat coming from the flames along with the distinct smell of burnt gasoline. They were too late, there was no way somebody could survive that.
Behind her, Hotch ran up and stopped beside her, looking at the building the same way Reid and her were. Horrified.
He was silent for a moment, processing what was happening. He glanced around him at the crowd before turning to Caroline with a stark face.
"The unsub might be here watching. Take pictures—as many as you can." He ordered. "I want photos of all the guys in the crowd."
"Got it." She told him, glancing back at Spencer. "Reid, can you grab the camera?"
He nodded and rummaged through his large leather satchel hanging on his shoulders. He pulled out a small digital camera and handed it to her as Hotch went to search for Gideon, Elle and Derek.
She booted up the camera and the moment it turned on, instead of focusing it on the building, she turned to the crowd instead. She began snapping pictures of every male in the crowd, all of them staring up at the building, unaware of what she was doing.
"Do you really think he's here?" Reid asked her quietly as the firetrucks approached. The sounds of sirens rang in the air.
She stopped taking photos for a moment and glanced up at him, her blue eyes meeting his brown ones. She stared into them, unsure what to tell him.
He knew the statistics. Arsonists are vain; they need to see their handiwork and the chaos they cause in order to get off. It was almost guaranteed the unsub was here somewhere. Yet, he asked anyway. Because, deep down in his fact-filled, apathetic science-controlled mind, even he felt the absolute horror of the situation.
How bad has the human race gotten that people can enjoy watching others burn around them?
"I don't know, Reid." She murmured, more to herself than him as she glanced up at the burning building. "I don't know. But I really hope he isn't."